PS 




Class _JIP3_2^^S 



COFmiGHT DEPOSm 



SEANCES WITH CARLYLE 



SEANCES WITH 
CARLYLE 



BY 

EUPHEMIA MACLEOD, M. A. 

Author of "My Rose and Other Poems." 




Boston 

The Four Seas Company 

1919 



Copyright, 1919, hy 
The Four Seas Company 






The Four Seas Press 
Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 



©CU530780 



DEDICATEX) 
TO 

THE CARLYLE CLUB 

LONDON 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Upheaval . . . . . . . . . . . ii 

Ships and Babies i6 

Poisonous Gas 20 

Has the Dog a Soul? 25 

Dogs of War 34 

Eagles 39 

France 44 

Edith Cavell 49 

Pragmatism 53 

Love 59 

Unity 69 

Finality 79 



SEANCES WITH CARLYLE 



Seances With Carlyle 



I. 

UPHEAVAL 



I WAS awakened about three in the morning by the 
sound of a gentle rain on the roof. The musical 
patter, patter came with an insistence that drove sleep 
away, and every now and again a larger drop fell with 
an impatient tap. 

By degrees I realized that a voice was trying to 
make itself heard through the rhythm of the shower, 
and straining my ears I caught a petulant, "Well?" 
coincident with the splash of an uncommonly large 
drop. 

"Well?" I replied meekly and interrogatively. 

"Don't keep me waiting in this infernal shower!" 
the voice said with some asperity. 

"No, no," I said hastily, "what is it?" 

"It is this. 1 want you to take down a few notes 
for me. They won't allow me pen and ink here, nor 

II 



12 Seances With Carlyle 

an inch of paper, and, by Heaven, I have something to 
say!" 

"Yes? Well, tell me." 

"There are several things. Could you spare me a 
few mornings?" 

"Why, yes, I am generally awake about this hour." 

"Thank you. Then there are some things that I 
want you to transmit from me to this greed- 
encumbered world which i-s sinking into wreck and 
dissolution, with its sombre-faced poor and its 
pandemoniacal round of foolish pleasures, which can 
only be purified by Deucalian Deluges ! By-the-bye," 
he broke off— "Have you any idea who I am?" 

"Carlyle?" I ventured. 

"Great Scott ! How did you know?" 

"Oh, I happen to have read some of your books," 
I said carelessly. 

"Indeed! And what has that to do with your 
knowing my voice? But never mind. I hope you 
can take down intelligently what I tell you. Can you 
spell?" 

I admitted that I was unfashionable enough to spell 
with some correctness. 

"Then let us begin. I have so much to say about 
so many things that it is not easy to know where to 



Upheaval 13 

start; but, as you say you can give me any number of 
mornings — " 

"I didn't," I interposed. 

" — any number of mornings," he repeated calmly — 
"it does not matter very much where we begin. 
Suppose we start on Chaos." 

"Just as you like," I said sulkily. 

"Now, what shall we call it?" 

"Anything you like," I answered with dignity. 

"Oh, I wasn't really asking your opinion, I was 
only thinking aloud." 

"Indeed?" I was very much offended, and it was 
only my curiosity and a feeling of pity for the old 
man that kept me from flatly refusing to take his notes 
at all. 

"I shall call it Upheaval. Take that down — Up- 
heaval. And now don't interrupt me or you'll make 
me lose my thread." 

I gulped down a sharp reply, and transcribed the 
following : 

UPHEAVAL 

What night of pitchy darkness, of lurid red of the 
nether fires, spreads over the Earth ? What shocks of 



14 Seances With Carlyle 

strange thunder reverberate across the murky heavens? 
Is not this the Day of the ReveaHng of the Hearts of 
Men? What are the-se brave souls who leave this 
contaminated Earth, joyous and unafraid? What are 
those others who also pass, they too unafraid, but 
sinister, cruel, cunning and dishonoured ? 

Their wild-booming cannon hurl fierce defiance not 
alone at the enemy, but at nuns and little children; 
they silence not alone the guns of their foes, but the 
song of praise and the voice of prayer in old historic 
churches; they break down not alone the defences of 
their opponents, but priceless works of art and the 
triumphs of the days of peace; they destroy not alone 
ramparts and barricades, but the faith of the world 
in honour and decency among men! 

An upheaval? Nay, more, a tumultuous engulfing 
of the hard-won morality of mankind into Nature's 
waste, inorganic Deep, where it sinks down, and yet 
down, in formless welter and horror. But Nature can- 
not rest in chaos; from her furnace fires that belch 
forth blinding clouds of confusion, will presently arise 
an intense and purifying flame which will forever 
separate the light from the darkness, the Right and 
True soul's imperative from all falsehood and vain 
boastings. 



upheaval i5 

As I remarked some eighty odd years ago : 
"It is with man's Soul as it was with Nature; the 
beginning of Creation is — Light. Till the eyes have 
vision, the whole members are in bonds. Divine 
moment, when over the tempest-tost Soul, as once over 
the w^ld-weltering Chao-s, it is spoken : 

"Let there be Light ! Even to the greatest that has 
felt such moment, is it not miraculous and God-an- 
nouncing; even as, under simpler figures, to the 
simplest and least. The mad primeval discord is 
hushed; the rudely- jumbled conflicting elements bind 
themselves into separate Firmanents ; deep silent rock- 
foundations are built beneath ; and the skyey vault 
with its everlasting Luminaries above; instead of the 
dark wasteful Chaos, we have a blooming fertile. 
Heaven-encompassed World." 



II. 

SHIPS AND BABIES 

3 A. M. — I hear the kitchen clock strike incisively, and 
then the sweet-toned cuckoo on the stairs echo it with 
an apologetic cadence for being heard at that unearth- 
ly hour. 

My conscience said, "You ought to wake up." 

And my reason said, "For goodness sake, go to 
sleep !" 

And then I remembered — Carlyle was due ! 

"Are you ready?" I heard almost instantly. 

"Yes !" I answered sleepily. "What is it to be this 
morning?" 

"What would you say now to gas ?" 

"Coal gas?" 

"No, poisonous gas!" 

"But that is since your day," I objected. 

"Of course it is. Everything is since my day: — 
everything that I want to talk about now," he ex- 
plained. "But, on second thoughts, I shall keep 
poisonous gas for another time : — it keeps bottled, you 
know. Do you remember," he continued reminiscent- 

i6 



Ships and Babies i7 

ly, "what I said in eighteen hundred and something 
about the machinery of war? But of course you 
don't. I said/' he went on impressively : 

"He of the red coat, I say, is a success and no 
failure ! He will veritably, if he gets orders, draw out 
a long sword and kill me. No mistake there. He is 
a fact and not a shadow. Alive in this Year Forty- 
three, able and willing to do his work. In dim old 
centuries, with William Rufus, William of Ipres, or 
far earlier, he began ; and has come down safe so far. 
Catapult has given place to cannon, pike has given 
place to musket, iron mail-shirt to coat of red cloth, 
salt-petre ropematch to percussion cap, equipments, 
circumstances, have all changed, and again changed; 
but the human battle-engine in the inside of any or 
each of these, ready still to do battle, stands there, six 
feet in standard size.'' 

And I said a good deal more which I shall not 
repeat this morning. It all seems to be rather tame 
now, though it had a ringing sound then. But in these 
days of dum-dum, or damn-damn bullets; of Geneva 
Conventions, buried fathoms deep in the debris of 
civiHzation ; of scraps of paper, carrying honour to the 
winds ; and of Heaven knows what breaking of treaties 
and fouling of the fair earth with deeds of the nether- 



i8 Seances With Carlyle 

most pit ; — what words can a poor devil of the forties 
find to voice his state of mind ! 

A ship, a veritable giant of a ship, one that could 
carry the whole village of Craigenputtoch in its well- 
built frame, crosses the ocean. All that art could do 
to make it lovely to the eye, all that commerce could 
do to provide it with comforts and luxuries, has been 
lavished on this immense vessel. And it carries a 
goodly cargo, merchandise of price, and gold, and 
precious stones, and hundreds of living souls; — men 
and women and babes. 

The sea bears this priceless freight safely over its 
mountainous waves, and the heavens look kindly on 
the giant Thing. It nears its native shores, and sud- 
denly — it is no more! Merchandise, men, women, 
babes, one hurtling and scattered mass. 

A stealthy blow, swift, and dreadful, and unseen, 
has shattered the strong craft, and with her, the faith 
of man in man. 

Where is our soldier "six feet in standard size", who 
fights an honourable enemy, he, too, "Six feet in 
standard size" ? These babes, who do not reach to our 
soldier's knee, who fights them, and with pitiless and 
deadly destruction, dooms them to the cold, sucking 
deep? And fights them how? Unarmed as them- 



Ships and Babies 19 

selves, and if it may not be man to man, at least man 
to babe, in open, if unequal fight? No! But with 
deadly stealth and cruel craft what hound of hell 
chases the innocent quarry through the silent deep, 
whetting its death-belching jaws on the bones of "The 
least of these" ? What daemon vivens, what incarnate 
devil, feeds on the bodies of innocent babe-s? 

And the skies do not fall, and the sea does not vomit 
forth its curse, for the End is not yet. But Mene, 
mene flames in the starry blue above, lighting up the 
blood-murked blue beneath. 

And the mark of Cain is on the brow of a mighty 
nation ! 



III. 

POISONOUS GAS 

When I am at home, that is, in my city boarding 
house, and I read myself to sleep according to the 
custom of my forefathers, I know at just what point 
it is no longer safe to leave the gas turned up. 

When the solid blocks of fact and of philosophy 
begin to totter, and fantastic domes of thought crown 
the most sedate statements, when the happenings of 
the day and the expectations of the morrow overflow 
their channels and inundate the printed page, I know I 
must rou-se myself and turn off the gas! 
" But out here in the country, in cousin Lucia's 
luxurious home, it is a comfort to know that a few 
volts of electricity more or less will not affect the 
general account book; and so when I am deliciously 
sleepy, I simply close my eyes in the full blaze of the 
electric light, and snuggle into the pillows. 

I had read the war new-s until I had a confused idea 
that the Russians had occupied Turkey and that the 
Turks had won a victory over the Austrians. 

"Something seems to be wrong," I said to myself, 
20 



Poisonous Gas 21 

"I must turn oif the gas!" and then consciousness 
murmured vaguely, "Not at Mr«. Smith's." And the 
next thing I knew the sun was peeping tentatively 
through the slats, and the electric light over my bed 
looked at me with a sickly and reproachful eye. 

I turned it oflF. 

"Gas!" 

"No, electric light !" 

"I mean, take it down, this morning's subject, — 
Gas." 

"Aren't you a bit early?" 

"Nothing is too early for this dis-organic, hell-ridden 
world," said Carlyle in his old-time style. "How can I 
rest till I have disburdened my mind of this abhorrent 
brutishness ? — It makes me nervous," he continued, "to 
have you sharpen your pencil while I am waiting to 
begin; please get it ready the night before. Now, 
start :"— 

POISONOUS GAS 

In this all-edacious and all-feracious year of nine- 
teen hundred and sixteen, I would proclaim aloud that 
there is a power and an infernal weapon of warfare 
that must forever be condemned to exclusion from the 
glorious, fateful battlefield of this God's world! 



22 Seances With Carlyle 

It is the weapon, called by what name, made of what 
material, you will, that inflicts on its victim, not a swift 
death-torture, for which the soldier is prepared in this 
barbaric age of machine guns and shrapnel, not a quiet 
euthanasia from the loss of blood from a clean wound, 
but a silly, vengeful and unnecessary torture, prolonged 
and lasting in its effect. 

Kill your man, if you must kill him, but for heaven's 
sake, do not torture him ! 

What manner of spirit dwells in you, ye gas-shooters 
and fiery bomb-throwers? Has the American Iroquois 
of the sixteenth century reincarnated in your cultured 
brains; has his fierce enjoyment of torture wedded 
with your chemical engineering ; and is their offspring 
this ghoulish monstrosity that defiles loathing Europe 
to-day ? 

What is this moaning and gasping? Who are these 
livid, living corpses that groan in unspeakable tortures? 
What new horror is upon this horror-drenched earth? 
What choking nightmare has taken possession of all 
these stalwart men and boys? 

What man-made Sirocco, what devil-born waste and 
miasmatic misuse of good, serviceable chlorine and of 
right royal flesh and blood is there here? And who 
art thou, O Man, who comest as a breath of murk and 



Poisonous Gas 23 

slime ? Who, not daring to face thy foe in equal fight, 
yet dar'st, O foolish one ! tempt the very heavens above 
and the depths beneath to do thee battle? For thee — 
behold the abyss and nameless annihilation — or worse ! 

But the old laissez-faire management of the world 
will soon be a thing of the past. Too long has Right- 
eousness paused with bated breath while Evil worked 
its deeds of violence! If the gates of Hell are not to 
prevail against her, she must be up and doing ! Now 
is no time for the turning of the other cheek, it is the 
day of the whip of cords and of the driving of the 
sacrilegious barterers of man's honour from the temple 
of the world! 

Think ye that these apostles of Dreadfulness under- 
stand soft speech and gentle ways? Nay! They but 
mock at honour, and call it inefficiency. Will you have 
your sons tortured and racked by this lung-consuming 
poison? There is only one way to stop it; and that is 
to drive back their poisonous gas on these who have 
generated it. Are there not chemists and to spare 
among the allied Nations who can manufacture a like 
product, or one that will bring weight to bear, and roll 
back the sulphurous fumes, that the death-dealer may 
know himself for what he is, and breathing deep of his 



24 Seances With Carlyle 

own emanations, may repent and save his deluded soul 
at the price of his hell-tortured body? 

Then, and only then, will the grave voice of the 
Hague Convention pierce his battle-deafened ears! 
Then, and not till then, will he cry "PeccaviT 



IV. 
HAS THE DOG A SOUL? 

"Woof! woof! woof!" 

Thus cousin Lucia's deep-voiced Dane addressed the 
rising sun. A veritable chanticleer is Cnut. He can 
hear the tread of a hobo half a mile away; and I 
believe the great creature never sleeps, for however 
unearthly the hour, the faintest approaching steps echo 
through the megaphone of Cnut's throat: — woof! 
woof! woof! 

The Dane, having got the sun out of bed and having 
hurled insulting remarks at the matutinal tramp, 
subsides; and the Pekinese who sleeps at my feet, or 
on them, lifts up his small voice in support of hi-s 
friend. 

"Fairy ! Lie down !" I command. Fairy obeys the 
letter of my behest, and making a stepping stone of my 
solar plexus, curls himself up with his silken head un- 
der my chin. 

Carlyle had evidently been aroused by the com- 
motion. 

"Two fine dogs !" he announced. 
25 



26 Seances With Carlyle 

"Two naughty dogs!" I retorted. 

A plaintive whine and an affectionate propitiatory 
lick betoken that I have hurt the feelings of a friend. 

Carlyle looked at me reproachfully. 

"Some people think that animals have no feelings!" 

Fairy never pays any attention to him and he did not 
evince any gratitude now. He settled himself com- 
fortably in the hollow of my arm and went off to sleep 
again. 

"And some people think they have no souls," con- 
tinued Carlyle. 

"Have they?" I asked vaguely. 

"Have they?" he thoundered. "Have they? Why 
do they feel and suffer? What do you suppose they're 
made of?" 

"Flesh and blood." 

"Oh yes !" he sneered. "Flesh and blood ! Just 
a machinery of flesh and blood makes Cnut guard his 
master's property at the risk of getting microbes in his 
teeth when the great Unwashed approach too near! 
It's unthinking flesh and blood that creates in that ball 
of fluff you call Fairy a love and loyalty that you 
cannot match ! Humph !" 

"But, how do you know they have souls?" 1 asked 
weakly. 



Has the Dog a Soul? ^7 

"How do you know they have not?" 

"I don't know anything about it — I have often 
wished they had," I added. 

"Wishing won't alter the facts of the Universe. Lots 
of people wish animals hadn't souls." 

"For gracious sake! Why?" 

"Oh, don't get excited ; the souls are not affected by 
Ihem." 

"What difference can it pos-sibly make to them if a 
poor animal has a soul or not?" 

"Affects their religious susceptibilities." 

"Religious fiddlesticks !" 

"Just so. Now, let us get to work. Head it. — 
Has the dog a Soul? You see," he explained, "I 
must use the interrogative form; that suggests that I 
am open to conviction and does not offend the vanity 
of my reader; a plain simple statement of fact would 
rouse his none too latent obstinacy." 

HAS THE DOG A SOUL? 

In the early days of the world, before Philosophy 
had set Mind on its unsteady throne of Mumbo- 
Jumboism and Pride, the kingly qualities of a man 
were courage and good faith with his friends, and he 



28 Seances With Carlyle 

was esteemed by his fellows for his keenness of eye 
and ear and for his swiftness of foot, attributes which 
he shared with the creatures about him, and in which 
they commonly surpassed him. 

In those days Man, probably rash and ill-advised 
and presumptuous of old as now, had however not yet 
grounded his dwelling place as the Centre of the 
Universe, nor raised himself to the Cro^Ti of Creation; 
and although he doubtless did not know himself for the 
sorry bit of creation he often is, at least he did not tell 
himself that the torpid earth, waiting every Spring, 
swart and sweating, for its flooding miracle of gorgeous 
iridescent green, and spreading before his half -unsee- 
ing eyes its panorama of renaissant beauty was wont 
to put on this rainbow garment in his honour ; nor did 
he imagine that the World, this whirling ball of mud 
and chemicals and unimaginable life, scudding before 
the winds of Time, existed for his pleasure alone and 
for his profit and his lust; he did not dream that the 
sun, moon and stars bowed down as they wheeled 
their ordered flight about his abiding place, which he 
knew not yet for the footstool of the Highest. Alas ! 
When he learned this thrilling thing, that the Foot of 
the Highest rested on his familiar ways and walks, he 
forgot in his exaltation that the Throne of the Highest 



Has the Dog a Soul? 29 

was built far above these low-set paths, and that, as 
the Heavens are High above the Earth, so are the 
thoughts of the Almighty high above the vain imagin- 
ings of His creatures ; and forgetting this, undiscerning 
man made his own devising-s, unveracious and 
phanta-sm-ridden, the measure and archetype of the 
Universe. 

No longer did he walk softly, and see in created 
things such divine mystery that, knowing not the 
Creator, he must needs worship the creature. Like a 
beggar on horseback, man forgot his lowly origin, and 
became puffed up with his own consequence, lording 
it insolently over everything less important than him- 
self, and, as he became more and more convinced of 
the measureless reach between the lower animals and 
himself, he was wont to arrogate to his manship the 
nature of a miniature god, with all the appurtenances 
thereof, among which appurtenance-s he reckoned a 
Saturnian savagery and a Jovian despotism. A 
nouveau-riche in spiritual experience, he felt that 
Heaven had condescended to him, not of Its own 
graciousness alone, but because of his transcendent 
value in the scheme of things. 

And when, in the fulness of time, peace and truth 
came to dwell on Earth, the world would none of 



30 Seances With Carlyle 

them, and only a few childlike souls beheld the vision 
of the true God, and remembering one who cared for 
the sparrows and the lilies, exalted mercy. Most men 
regarded mercy as a womanish attribute, and even 
those who professed to worship the Man who was 
meek and lowly in heart, despised gentleness and ex- 
tolled tyranny, so that the world wa-s in a pretty state 
of dumb tears and miserable serfdom; and, if the 
bondsman was but the chattel of his overlord, to be 
broken for a whim and tortured wantonly at the will of 
his master, how much more was the poor, defenceless 
brute at the mercy of overlord and serf alike! And 
human souls, hag-ridden with cruelty, wreaked their 
fury on helpless creatures, because they were helpless, 
and excused themselves — if they excused themselves 
at all — on the ground that the creatures had no souls. 

Into this state of affairs stepped "a grown man with 
the heart of a child." About the year 1200, St. Francis 
of Assisi, following in all literalness the way of his 
Master, talked of Righteousness and of the beauty of 
his Lady Poverty, and he told how the greatest joy was 
the child of the greatest gentleness. "Brother Wolf" 
trusted him, and the birds were his "little sisters", to 
whom he preached of the love of their Creator. 

To Italy, embroiled in feuds between its ancient 



Has the Dog a Soul? 31 

houses, feuds between city and city, feuds here and 
feuds there, came this Man of Peace, Hke some rare 
heavenly flower, springing from the arid groimd of 
selfishness about him. His very uniqueness won for 
him an audience, and because in the heart of every 
man there is an unquenchable spark of the Divine, he 
found followers among the nobles, the merchants, and 
the peasants. 

But this Soul, all fire and sweetness, passed to its 
reward, and although its influence was still strong, 
something of its aims and ideals was forgotten; and 
kindness to dumb creatures, being the latest moral 
acquisition of the race, — and a mere shadow of an 
acquisition at that, was the first thing to go. We 
have the psychologists for this: that in the realm of 
morals, the last thing you gain is the first thing you 
lose. So while the tenderness of the Man lingered 
around his followers, it did not reach, as his own per- 
sonal compassion had, to his "little brothers and 
sisters." 

St. Francis, Thou Man of Peace, thou Champion of 
holy Poverty and of holier Pity! The times are ripe 
for thee here and now. Come, thou bare- footed saint, 
robed in brown sackcloth; walk through the broad 
corridors and well equipped operating rooms of our 



32 Seances With Carlyle 

Institutes of Science — built, ten to one, with money 
ground out of the poor. Thy sensitive ear is tortured, 
thine impassioned soul is ablaze with god-like anger. 
Who are these who batten on the agonies of thy "little 
brothers and sisters"? There lie-s Brother Dog, 
fastened with cruel clamps, the noble soul of him 
terrified — as thine or mine would be — by the uplifted, 
threatening knife which has already severed his quiver- 
ing nerves and the strong forceps which have torn his 
already lacerated flesh with implacable thrust and 
tweak. Here canst thou not lift thy voice, Francis of 
the silver tongue; these are no simple-hearted 
Christians of the 13th century, intent, at least, on 
saving their own souls. That man with the tweezers, 
does he know he has a soul or a conscience? Little 
recks he of such impediments. A brain he knows he 
has, and an intellect, and the dog, too, has, he knows, 
a brain, — for him to prick and prod with these same 
tweezers. The dog has sensation, too — as a mere 
incidental — but what has he of the white coat and the 
tweezers to do with that ? The dog has no soul ! Lift 
up thy voice, St. Francis, — but not within these walls ! 

I laid down my pencil. I had never before dared to 
address a word to Carlyle when the morning effusion 



Has the Dog a Soul? 33 

was over. But now I forgot myself. A vision of 
Fairy, timid and oversensitive, held in the clamp of 
a vivisectional machine, his dear soft paws that I 
loved, stretched, taut and helpless, his poor little heart 
beating in terror, smote upon me, and I cried in 
anguished protestation. 

"But I don't see the connection. Why should an 
animal be tortured just because it has no soul?" 

He glowered at me for a moment. "Why indeed?" 
he said, and vanished through the window. 



V. 

DOGS OF WAR 

"You remember our conversation of yesterday 
morning?" 

"I do. It kept me awake till all hours, and that is 
why you had to knock over Cousin Lucia's new Belgian 
grey chair before you could wake me." 

"It was the wind," said Carlyle. Then he plunged 
abruptly into his subject. "I want to talk about dogs 
again, — dogs of war. I wrote about them somewhere 
in the fifties as perhaps you know." 

"I recollect the passage quite well." 

He looked gratified. "Then there is no need to refer 
to it. But, talking of dogs ; you know, of course, that 
you cannot judge every dog by Cnut or Fairy, so you 
must treat impersonally any derogatory remarks that 
I may have to make of the species. Now then, Title : — 

DOGS OF WAR 

Every schoolboy knows that kunos, the Greek word 
for dog, by changing according to orthographical cus- 

34 



Dogs of War 35 

torn its ku for the English cy, gives us our word cynic. 
There he is, the cynic, with his snarling lip raised to 
expose the canine tooth below it, biting and snapping 
at the friendly hand that brings him his daily portion 
of sunrise and toil, of twilight and rest. There is no 
pleasing him. Ignore him, and he is filled with the 
rage of making his presence felt, and becomes an 
insatiable, ravening wolf to the unwary lamb who 
dares to paddle in the stream of life and call it pure 
after the cynic has fouled it with his restless feet. 

There is no office so petty, so blighting, as that of 
the cynic; he is the Arch-priest of the Prince of Dark- 
ness, drowning with his horrid incantations the song 
of praise and goodwill, stifling the aspirations of the 
gentle, hardening the heart of the aggressor. 

Woe to the nation into whose soul has entered the 
spirit of cynicism! Lost to faith and just dealing, 
owning no compelling duty beyond self-interest, no 
higher deity than temporal and material Might; how 
can it hope to march in the vanguard of those nations 
who, whatever their faults, are pressing toward a King- 
dom of the Spirit? Without honour itself, how can it 
love honour in others? Will not the honourable 
opposition of another nation be a reeking in its nostrils 
and an abomination in its sight? And will it not fall 



3^ Seances With Carlyle 

from one wickedness to another, until it cry from the 
depths of its abasement, "Evil be thou my good !" — 

The old fable tells us of the dog in the manger, who, 
although he could not eat the hay himself, would not 
allow the hungry horse to touch a wisp of it. The 
psychology of this state of mind is curious, if not 
edifying; it resembles the state of mind of the cynic, 
who, because he is not happy himself, cannot bear to 
see anyone else so. If the dog-in-the-manger man 
does not care for mashed potatoes, he is personally 
aggrieved if his wife has them for the children. The 
fact that four plump mealy ones in their jackets lie 
beside his own plate does not at all allay his irritation ; 
the paramount fact is that some one is enjoying some- 
thing that he cannot, or will not, enjoy. 

O the petty soul of the man! While the Sons 
of the Morning chant the birth of new worlds, and the 
ancient coeval stars dip and rise to their native rhythm ; 
while the cycles of creation on his own planet are 
sweeping on moment by moment ; he who should stand 
aghast at the stupendous panorama, and hold his 
breath for very awe, is expending that breath in 
peevish futility, because, forsooth, he cannot make his 
individual inclinations the measure of the conduct of 
all men ! 



Dogs of War 37 

And woe to the nation that seeks the gratification of 
its own lust for power or for pre-eminence at the ex- 
pense of its sister nations ; that would force its ideals 
and its culture on a recalcitrant world, as Mohammed 
forced the true faith of Allah on recalcitrant Christian 
and Heathen alike ! 

What over-riding of Rights, and implacable 
vengeance on a liberty-loving people ! What burnings 
and slayings ! What devilish delight in sheer unavail- 
ing cruelty wreaked on those whose ideals, being ideals 
of the spirit, are a reproach to dog-in-the-mangerism 
and Dagon Worship! What deeds of Antichrist and 
of the nethermost Gehenna ! What bluster and raging 
of the elements of Hell, while all the time the still small 
voice of Jehovah breathes with the breath of the 
springing flowers and vibrates from the undying stars ! 

But to return to our dogs. I should like to say a 
word about the bull dog. What friend so faithful as 
a bull dog of pure breed, and what foe so to be 
dreaded ! A gentleman to the tips of his sturdy paws ; 
gentle and docile with those he loves, but forbidding 
enough in all conscience to the evil-doer. No bluster 
and false bravado about him, — all that he leaves to the 
lesser breeds, he does his work quickly, and he does it 
well. Let once those solid teeth close on the offender 



38 Seances With Carlyle 

and his punishment is sure. Unlock those jaws? 
Never ! Slow to wrath is our bull dog, contemptuous 
of the barking and snapping of the whole crew of curs, 
but quick to deal out justice to a dog twice his size; 
those tense muscles, that compact frame, were not 
made to tamper with. Let the bully, no matter what 
his size, beware, for our bull dog knows neither fear 
nor defeat. 

Well for the nation of his make! Well shall it be 
with it in the day of trial ! Scars it may receive, and 
many an ugly gash from those who hate because they 
fear it ; but no loosening will there be of its hold until 
the offender bite the dust at his feet. Yet in the day 
of victory it will remember mercy. Right royally it 
knows to mete out punishment to the aggressor, right 
royally, too, to extend clemency to its fiercest foe, and 
right royally, be sure, to stand by its friends in their 
hour of need, not counting the cost, seeking neither 
gain or glory, but fighting the good fight because there 
is nothing else to do. Long live such a nation ! And 
long live its King ! 



VI. 

EAGLES 

Cousin Lucia makes the most delicious Welsh rare- 
bit of anyone I know. I am afraid I had over-indulged 
in this bonne bouche, for I had the most awful night- 
mare. A heavy golden eagle, of the very species I 
had been reading about as I fell asleep, settled on my 
chest and began flapping his immense wings as he 
prepared to tear my heart out. However, Fairy, 
assuming the proportions of a lion, chased him round 
the room, and having forced him into a corner, sat on 
him. With a sigh of relief, I turned over and went to 
sleep again. 

"Was it Welsh rarebit, or was it really an eagle?" 

"Oh, it was certainly an eagle, I saw its wicked 
eyes !" 

I sat up to emphasize my statement and saw Carlyle 
looking at me quizzically. 

"At least," I amended, "I thought it was an eagle, 
but I see it was really Cousin Lucia's chafing-dish and 
my own greediness." 

"Exactly," he returned in an uncomplimentary tone ; 
39 



40 Seances With Carlyle 

"and you will permit me to say that you made an 
incorrect inference." 

"Dear me/' I broke in testily, "this is no way to 
wake a person in the morning, arguing and fault- 
finding ! Could you not try to be soothing sometimes ?" 

"All the same you did make a false inference. 
Because eyes are wicked, it does not at all follow that 
they belong to an eagle. A tiger may have fierce eyes, 
or a weasel, or an ill-tempered man. You have been 
guilty of a double fallacy, for an eagle may have a 
benign and pensive eye. The Washington eagle of 
North America, for instance, which has been known 
to be tamed, becoming quite a friendly soul, though 
to its own undoing, I grant you. For a noted one 
which was kept in captivity for some years showed 
signs of losing the richness of its plumage, and his 
owner, wishing to preserve the specimen for a museum, 
dosed him on several occasions with a strong poison, 
against which, however, the bird's stomach was ap- 
parently proof." 

"I do not know of anything more treacherous than 
a treacherous human being !" I exclaimed indignantly. 

"I suppose not," said Carlyle grimly. "But let us 
get to work. As you have mentioned eagles, we may 
as well take them for a subject," 



Eagles 41 

"It was you who talked about them," I reminded 
him. '7 only dreamt of one." 

"That has nothing to do with the subject," he 
announced sententiously. "Take it down — Eagles." 

EAGLES 

Crouching through the spectral primitive forests, 
his tomahawk gleaming in the light of the moon, see 
the North American Indian steal to the scalping of his 
enemies ! He i« the leader of his tribe and he carries a 
pole fledged with the feathers of his brother, the great 
eagle, than which he can think of no finer symbol for 
the qualities he loves, — strength and untameable 
freedom of spirit, swift vengeance without vocifera- 
tion, and an aloofness not to be infringed. 

Look at the Roman legions, marching to their world- 
wide conquest! What lead-s them on? A solitary 
Eagle borne aloft! Gone are its retinue of wolf and 
minotaur, horse and bear ; for Gaius Marius will have 
none of them. Naught but the Eagle hatched in the 
high mountain eyries, above the dulling mists and the 
clamour of mankind, may represent that fell, dominant 
race, merciful, despite its cruelty, to its tributaries, 
because mercy is profitable to the Empire, but utterly 
ruthless to the unconquerable. 



42 Seances With Carlyle 

In this topsy-turvy world of blatant consequentiali- 
ties and timid virtues, where Might has long paraded 
in the plucked feathers of Right, what fitter emblem 
of the nations than the Eagle! See him watch from 
his lofty nest as the osprey dives into the sea and 
flashes upward into the sunshine bearing his silvery- 
scaled prey! A shadow passes between the osprey 
and the sun. It is the swift eagle hovering over him, 
and forcing him to drop the fruits of his toil, which he 
sees snatched as it falls and borne to that immense 
nest on the windy pinnacle. 

Well for the osprey and the heron that every eagle 
is not a winged highway robber or a deep sea 
marauder! Well for the tumultuous, seething Earth 
that every eagle-bannered nation is not of the Earth 
earthy ! Lawfully may an eagle fight for the lives of 
its young and the defence of its eyrie, aloft in the deep 
azure heavens. It would be but a poor scrawny 
simulacre of an eagle that, seeing its home invaded, 
could droop its wings and hide behind the cavernous 
rocks, or with propitiating, un-eagle-like quailing seek 
clemency from its fierce foe. In no work on natural 
history will you find an eagle of such monstrous 
cowardice, and assuredly not on mountain height or 
rock-bound coast. 



Eagles 43 

Lawfully may an eagle- fostered people fight for its 
sacred rights and the rights of the oppressed, which, 
being of eagle-heart, it holds equally dear with its own. 
Nay, it would be but a scrawny nation, and one which 
any bird were shamed to represent, could it feel its 
feathers plucked and not spread its wings and shriek 
defiance at the malefactor. 

This brave avenger, pursuing the arch-criminal to 
his undoing, is no nation of everlasting infamy to be 
looked on with indignant abhorrence. Such is the 
portion of a people lost to decency and honour, forget- 
ful of the noble eagle qualities that its standard should 
symbolize, and imitating only the ferocity of the bird 
of prey, a people steeped in hate and all manner of 
agonizing and stifling brimstone exhalations, which 
choke the fair aspirations of the spirit. 

But a royal-hearted people, led by a right royal 
eagle, and fashioned after its noblest pattern, a people 
generous and unafraid, what praise can measure their 
deserving! Into the far star-bespread blue we see 
them mount in white purity of intention, barred with 
the blood red stripes of their slain ! 



VII. 

FRANCE! 

Cousin Alex, with his feet on the fender and Fairy 
on his knee, was holding forth on the War. 

**By Jove!" he finished, "they're a fine lot of fellows, 
these Frenchies. Who would have believed they had 
it in them?" 

"Why Alex," remonstrated Cousin Lucia in her 
gentle way, "You know that the French have always 
been brave from away far back — Oh, I never could 
remember history! But you know, — Charlemagne and 
Rollo and all those heroes of olden days." 

"Of course we all knew they'd be brave," said Alex 
warmly, "but it'-s their confounded grit and staying 
power that surprises me. I thought they were all fire 
and dash and could accomplish wild spectacular feats 
while other people were wondering how to begin. But 
this holding out, through all the misery and discom- 
fort, in the face of hunger and devastated homes! I 
tell you what, they're plucky !" he ended enthusiastical- 
ly. 

"Yes!" agreed Cousin Lucia heartily. "And the 
44 



France 45 

Belgians ! How brave they have been too. I remem- 
ber from my Caesar in school that the Belgians were 
part of the tribe of the Nervii, they were related to 
them at least, and the Nervii were the greatest fighters 
of Gaul, and Gaul is now France, so there must be 
some connection, I suppose, though I don't know much 
about the in-between history. Anyway," she wound 
up "everybody is being so brave in this war, that the 
Allies all seem like one brave nation, you can't make 
comparisons !" 

Cousin Alex leaned over to give his wife an af- 
fectionate pat, and Fairy, scenting a romp, jumped 
down and frisked about, and grave subjects were 
banished. 

Cousin Alex, who has no voice, and not much ear, 
and who never could learn French, «at down at the 
piano and thundered out the Marseillaise, till the shut- 
ters rattled with, 

"Allong Zong Fong!" 

"Gracious, Alex!" pleaded Cousin Lucia, "The 
neighbors will think we run a Chinese laundry !" 

I put my fingers in my ears and fled, laughing, 
pursued by Fairy who looked on it all as an amuse- 
ment got up especially for him. 

I slipped into bed to enjoy the luxury of a new 



46 Seances With Carlyle 

magazine, and Fairy settled on my pillow and was soon 
faintly snoring. It seemed to me that I had scarcely 
turned off the light and settled into a comfortable 
sleep when there was a rap-tap on the window, and a 
reproving voice broke my slumbers with : 

"Do you know that it is after four o'clock, and our 
appointment was for three?" 

I turned sleepily without opening my eyes. 

"It's only three by the old time !" 

Carlyle said nothing, and I sat up guiltily, deter- 
mined to be honest in spite of my drowsiness. 

"Or perhaps it's five, I never remember which way 
it goes. It's Lucia who remembers for the house- 
hold." 

"Of course it's Lucia who remembers !" he 
answered disagreeably. "Lucia spoils you all. What 
was that row I heard going on in the music room last 
night? I noticed you disappeared." 

"Oh, that was only Alex singing, 'AUong Zong 
Fong! '" 

"And what may that be?" asked Carlyle contemp- 
tuously. 

"Alex thinks it's the Marseillaise/' I answered 
demurely. 

"Humph!" he snorted. "However, that suggests a 



France 47 

subject for this morning. You needn't look for your 
writing pad on the table ; it has fallen on the floor, and 
your pencil has rolled under the bed. Now, since you 
are ready at last, take down the title — France!'* 

FRANCE! 

Like some incarnate spirit in prison, France has 
hewed on the granite walls of materialism, and the 
tappings of her hammer have been heard afar off. 
But never trumpet blast by Jerichoan wall-s pealed with 
the thunder-shaking reverberation of the great trumpet 
calls of Honour, Freedom, Chivalry, which have 
wakened the sleeping -soul of France, and broken down 
her barriers, making of them but a cobwebbery and a 
vanishing phantasma. 

Her young men and maidens, with moisture and with 
fire in their eyes, dedicate their fresh lives to her, not 
with loud-flaunting, "Je le jure!" but soberly, and in 
earnest indomitable truth. Her old men, no longer 
tottering, since their country calls, uphold the hand-s of 
their stalwart sons, and her mothers and grandmothers, 
bearing — who knows? — almost the heaviest share of 
the burden, march, face forward, to the coming re- 
generation of the world and the triumph of the things 
of the Spirit ! 



48 Seances With Carlyle 

There is no theatricality and no languescent waver- 
ing, for, with hearts initiated into the "Divine depth of 
Sorrow," they meet the dark days that engloom the 
world. Their grief is too real for outcry, their courage 
too great for bluster, their faith in France too sure for 
sentimentalizing or inertia! Not by outbursts of 
noble sentiment, but with far other ammunition, shall 
the fight for Liberty be won. 

But think not that the Nation is steeped in moody- 
silent, grim-taciturn humour. It knows that autumnal 
withering and the deadness of winter are but preparing 
the summer's blooming. For Time's seedfield is not 
sleeping, and She knows that the nation that has sowed 
broadcast its measure of dragon's teeth, has a harvest 
awaiting it which, whatever crops up, will be vastly 
unlike her own, sown with passionate Patriotism and 
watered with the gentle dews of Mercy. The "Art of 
Daring" is Hers, and the silent joy which is the fruit 
of true Daring and righteous Anger ! 

O glorious France! Right chivalric and long- 
enduring, enter into thy Kingdom of the Spirit! — 

Carlyle's eyes were alight with enthusiasm and moist 
with his own emotion. He turned away from me, and 
vanished into the Dawn. 



VIII. 

EDITH CAVELL 

Cousin Lucia had presented me with a framed 
picture of that noble woman, Edith Cavell. I fell 
asleep again last night with my light burning, and this 
morning when I awakened, the reflector shed the full 
blaze of the electricity on the glass of my picture, 
irradiating it. This is one of the best pictures I have 
seen of Edith Cavell; and I mused on the tender 
strength in the girl's face and on her tragic death. 
"A fine woman!" 

I started. Before I could reply, Carlyle continued: 
'The faith of a saint and the nerve of a soldier!" 
"Yes, indeed!" I said, "and the motherliness and 
self -forget fulness of a true woman." 

"Thank God for the true women! This Earth is 
teeming with them, and we knew it not. But let 
calamity befall, and there is your true woman ready to 
do labour and service, and, if need be, doughty deeds." 
"Thousands of our women have gone as nurses; 
and it would be hard to find a woman at home who is 
not doing something for the war," I answered 
proudly. 

49 



50 Seances With Carlyle 

"Just so," agreed Carlyle, "just so ; and that is as it 
should be. Was woman made to be a cumber er of the 
ground, a doll- faced nonenity, a soulless, luxury- 
loving hanger-on of civilization? By no means! Let 
her arise and shew herself the helpmeet she was meant 
to be! While I am on this subject," he continued ex- 
citedly, "turn that light away from my eyes and take 
down a few notes for me. Head them, EDITH 
CAVELL. There could not be a better heading." 

EDITH CAVELL 

In the circumambient medium of trivialisms and 
egoisms, of crudities and cruelties, is there not the 
nucleus of a new Star — not an orb of tinsel and tin 
that shines to the flicker of every tallow dip, but a 
flaming Sun that extinguishes equally the tallow dip of 
the cynic and the electric cluster of the politician. A 
Star that moves swiftly through the murk of Nothing 
and No-Worth and False-Worth, illuminating with 
Heaven-lit rays the dark comers of this Hell-spotted 
planet and playing in magnetic flashes around its pris- 
matic, radiant heights, evolving of its benign influence 
a nobler Hell, and a far nobler and gentler Heaven, 
than you, O Master Keep-em-down, and you, O Cap- 
tain Laissez-Faire have ever imagined I 



Edith Cavell 51 

A Star? A Co6mic force? Be it what it will so 
that it sweep away all luridity and murkiness and 
miasmatic effluvia from the soul's atmosphere! 
Feminism, call it, or Woman's Influence, or Equal 
Rights, it matters not. Let it but unsettle the old 
centre of gravity of our Mammon-ridden planet, till 
the impregnable rock-barriers of self-interest totter, 
and righteousness and altruism are discovered, vener- 
ablest and most-enduring of God's creations ! 

If the world is to be a God's-world, if the "cruel 
habitations" are to be destroyed, and the "Desert 
blossom as the rose," then must each faithfully do his 
duty by thi-s Earth, which is no mean Eaith; nay a 
right royal one, and crying for right royal duty and 
service. 

Woman has, Alas ! too long spent her time over the 
embroideries of life, very beautiful and pleasant and 
right in their place, but in nowise of such indubitable 
value as the homespun garments of Civic Equity, the 
plain fine linen of the Righteousness of the Ten Com- 
mandments. 

But woman is new forgetting her gewgaws and her 
pleasant trivialities; the embroidery frame has given 
place to the bandage roller, and knitting needles twinkle 
through fingers that a couple of years ago were fettered 



52 Seances With Carlyle 

in idleness. Even the woman "whose price is above 
rubies" has learned new task-s, has practised new feats 
of endurance. Her eyes have indeed looked on strange 
sights, her reluctant ears have heard unwonted sounds. 
Necessity and self-devotion have steadied her nerves 
to bear tremendous strain and have made her brain 
quick to think and her heart strong to carry out the 
most difficult projects. 

Edith Cavell was such a woman. She rose to the 
heights of patriotism and Christian duty. And her 
reward — was that of the prophets before her. There 
is something specially stirring about the martyrdom of 
this noble girl. The brutal ferocity that attended it, the 
maddened haste of the powers of evil to sweep from 
the Earth one whose unfaltering courage and unwaver- 
ing faith proclaimed the righeousness of her deeds. 
They have slain her "in all the lustihood of her young 
powers." For the slayer there remain obloquy and 
darkness. For her it is "Eternity and Day" ! 



IX. 

PRAGMATISM 

It is one thing to awaken in the early dawn and lie 
sleepily and snugly under the blankets, with the im- 
mensity and majesty of the Universe forgotten, and a 
sense of coziness and at-home-ness pervading your 
being, just because your feet feel the soft, warm weight 
of a little brown dog upon them ; it is something quite 
different to waken to the sound of an imperious voice, 
ordering you to sit up and write intelligently, and set- 
ting your dog barking and frisking, and with his em- 
phatic paws punctuating the tender parts of your 
anatomy, as if to pound out any sleep that might be 
lurking there. Carlyle had an irritating way of looking 
in the early morning as if he were about to say "J'ai 
failli aitendre!" And I certainly was not awakened 
like Montaigne, to the sound of a gentle flute. 

However, there was something bracing about the old 
man, and when he poked his head unceremoniously in 
at the window and uttered one sharply interrogative 
word — "Pragmatism?" — I answered briskly, '']\i?X 
what I feel like." 

53 



54 Seances With Carlyle 

"Why should you feel like it?" 

His uncomplimentary tone stung me to reply, "You 
are not the only person who has raged over laissez- 
faire and long-winded nothings." 

He looked at me in mild surprise. 

"No, no, of course not. But most of you people en- 
dure all woes but your own with such beautiful Christ- 
ian patience and fortitude !" 

"Not as beautifully nor as patiently as you might 
think. If you have been reading up Pragmatism, you 
will see that we are becoming quite practical, even in 
our philosophy." 

"Ah, yes ! That brings me to my subject. It is not 
new, you know," he added, in an explanatory paren- 
thesis, "I wrote about it before you were born. Don't 
let that dog chew the corner of your writing-pad; take 
a clean page and head it — 'Pragmatism'." 

PRAGMATISM 

Maddest and miserablest of men is he who will not 
work ! Be a man's ideals never so high, his imaginings 
never so exalted, yet are all his philosophies and 
moralities but a" rudderless bark on a shoreless sea, 
unless behind them there is the Will of a Man, the 
activity of an earnest being, who feels what he speaks. 



Pragmatism 55 

and speaks because he feels; and who proves by his 
deeds that his feeling and speaking are no shallow 
dilettante-ing — with the vital sorrows of the world. 

Did the creation of the world take place some six 
million years ago, and does this flowering planet bid 
fair to become ere long a lifeless whirler in space, as 
dead and stark as the spectral moon? — Not so. Our 
Earth is not yet created. But thank God Who gives 
such power and dynamic intelligence to man, it is being 
created day by day. In spite of wars and tumults and 
corroding evils numberless, it is a more heavenly world 
than it was yesterday ; to-morrow it will be nearer still 
to the divine pattern. 

The Man of War may desolate its pleasant fields and 
mar its age-old walls. But the man who has produced 
a spineless cactus can literally make its deserts "to 
blossom as the rose", and can from arid barrenness 
create food for beasts and humankind. The brain and 
the will and the strength of the Man all focussed on 
one idea. Here is intellect in fruitful action! Here 
is your true Pragmatism ! 

More than ever comes to the world to-day the old 
trumpet call to put into practice our fine theories of 
Christianity and Humanitarianism, or to discard them 
forever! Are they workable, — workable for us? 



56 Seances With Carlyle 

Then let us hold by them, and live by them. Are they 
above us, and out of touch with the exigencies of our 
modern civilization ? Then, at least let us honour and 
revere them by letting them alone ! Let us not take the 
words of High Heaven upon our lips, while our selfish 
hearts and our indolent wills shrink from their 
obedience ! 

Dost thou believe, O stricken Earth! that "of such 
is the Kingdom of Heaven"? See to it then, that thy 
factories teem not with these "little ones", shorn of the 
glory of their morning sun, bowed and decrepit with 
the withering of age and indifference ere the earthly 
dews have watered their tender shoots ! 

Dost thou believe, too, O Earth ! that "not a sparrow 
falleth to the ground without your Father"? That 
"God is the Creator of all flesh" ? Then, what of these 
vivisection clamps and sharp-pointed steel prongs and 
twisters? This inhuman and wanton mangling of 
quivering flesh and nerve, that reeks in the sight of 
Heaven ? 

Dost thou, O Earth! believe in purity, while thy 
great ones batten and fatten on thy White Slave Traf- 
fic; in health and cleanliness, while thy slums are 
coated with filth and infested with the White Plague ; 
in disinterestedness, while dishonest business backing 



Pragmatism 57 

and moneyed greed crush the upright man and enrich 
the rogue with fortunes filched from widows and 
orphans ? 

O thou sad and stricken Earth, racked and much 
tormented, on thy walls and on thy palaces is engraven, 
in blazing letters of famine, blood and agony, the con- 
demnatory, Mene, Mene! 

Awake, thou troubled, sleeping Earth, from thy 
nightmare of chaotic ravings and helpless fever toss- 
ings! "Suit the action to the word!" Philosophies 
aplenty thou hast and to spare; live out the best of 
them, however haltingly ; only — live them ! 

Thy feet will grow surer, thy progress swifter, step 
by step. There is no other way! Search not the 
depths nor the heights for that which i'S within thee, O 
Man, co-creator of the World! Let not our Earth 
pass to its final goal along an uncertain path, crushing 
the tender wayside flowers and blighting the delicate 
springing things that freshen its wearisome way. Will 
of Man, and Brain and Heart of Man, terrestrial 
trinity, guide to perfectness and gladness the destinies 
of this Earth, which is your sacred charge! To- 
morrow and Heaven may be yours ! To-day and Earth 
are alone securely your own! 



5^ Seances With Carlyle 

Carlyle paused for breath, and then continued re- 
miniscently, "Away back in the early thirties I wrote : 

"Conviction, were it never so excellent, is worthless 
until it converts itself into Conduct. Nay, properly, 
Conviction i-s not possible till then; inasmuch as all 
Speculation is by nature endless, formless, a vortex 
amid vortices; only by a felt indubitable certainty of 
Experience does it find any centre to revolve round, 
and so fashion itself into a system. Most true is it, as 
a wise man teaches us, that 'Doubt of any sort cannot 
be removed except by Action.' On which ground too 
let him who gropes painfully in darkness or uncertain 
light, and prays vehemently that the dawn may ripen 
into day, lay this other precept well to heart, which to 
me was of invaluable service : 'Do the duty which lies 
nearest thee', which thou knowest to be a Duty ! Thy 
second Duty will already have become clearer. . . . 

"I too could now say to myself: Be no longer a 
Chaos, but a World, or even Worldkin. Produce ! 
Produce ! Were it but the pitifulest infinitesimal frac- 
tion of a product, produce it in God's name! 'Tis the 
utmost thou hast in thee; out with it then. Up, up! 
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy 
whole might. Work while it is called to-day, for the 
Night cometh wherein no man can work." 



X. 

LOVE 

We had been up until past midnight, celebrating good 
old Saint Andrew's Day in hospitable Scotch fashion ; 
though, by-the-by, Cousin Lucia, nee O'Grady, claims 
the Saint for the "Ould Sod". Be that as it may, 
twenty staunch "Hielanders" together with their good 
wives and a few young friends, had met to commemo- 
rate the thirtieth of November. The soiree had wound 
up with "Annie Laurie" and "Auld Lang Syne", sung 
in full chorus as we held hands in a grand circle and 
almost dislocated our arms with the emphatic swing 
with which we beat time. After this violent exercise, 
we had set out for home through a blinding Fall bliz- 
zard, — young Donald Macpherson and bonnie Jeannie 
Ross far ahead of us older ones. 

A hot drink, a blazing grate fire, and the "rough 
male kiss of blankets" made an agreeable prelude to a 
deep sleep, all the deeper from a subconscious sense of 
security against the howling wind without. I had 
hardly sounded the delicious depths of this slumberous 
comfort, when I became aware, with some degree of 

59 



6o Seances With Carlyle 

vexation, that the fire was going out and the wind was 
whistling more keenly than ever. Suddenly, shriller 
than any bagpipe, it tore away the remaining shreds of 
sleep with 



^^^^^m 



and above its din I heard Carlyle, apparently suffering 
from a cold, and trying to sing in a funny, -sentimental 
voice, 

" 'Her brow is like the snaw drift, 
Her neck is like the swan.' " 

I coughed discreetly. 

"Oh, I don't mind you in the least", said the philoso- 
pher, "and I am not ashamed of a little sentiment 
either; we Scotch are quite given to that sort of thing 
when we get started, 'Douglas tender and true', you 
know, and all that." 

I wanted to go to sleep again, so I was not very sym- 
pathetic. 

He regarded me half -contemptuously, though he 
evidently wished to win me to good humor, and he pro- 
ceeded with unaccustomed mildness. 



Love 6i 

"Buried in feather pillows and Scotch wool blankets, 
you listen to the tempest without, and say to yourself, 
'Winter has come', but for me there is to-day no Win- 
ter, but Eternal Spring; for my mind is dwelling in 
the fair Spice-Country of Romance." 

He sighed, and resumed — **My title for this morn- 
ing's talk is Love. Write it legibly — you have been 
careless in that regard lately." 

I shook my fountain pen crossly, and I fear I made 
an inkspot on Cousin Lucia's new green rug; but I 
wrote in a firm round hand — 

LOVE 

"Heaven revealing itself on Earth!" Thus spake 
Teufelsdrockh before you were born; thus I, to-day, 
with a deeper insight than that poor devil could hope 
for, repeat — "Heaven revealing itself on Earth!" My 
eyes are blinded with a dazzling effulgence, in my ears 
rings the seraphic chiming of a thousand paradisic 
bells, and I breathe the incense of flower-filled Spring. 

What is Love? Who can define this transcendent 
magnetic force, this "Universal spiritual Electricity," 
that floods the world with mystic dancing lights and 
flaming bursts of skyey colour, that sheds a warm glow 
over the bleak fields of life, and brings Hope and 



62 Seances With Carlyle 

Courage where Desolation had spread its cavernous 
gloom ? Canst thou lay bare the power that holds the 
planets on their course, or spell the mazes of 
the wandering stars ? And wouldst thou interpret this 
invincible, Dynamic Love ! It can be guessed at only 
through its workings, and strange and amazing enough 
these often are! Yet, of truth, through It, the step 
that once dragged wearily across the lonely plains of 
Despair is buoyant, the shoulders, bowed by care and 
struggle, lift themselves square to the now-possible 
task, and the downcast eyes are raised to the stars. 

In the serene solitude of a holy oneness, in the 6ure- 
ness of an understanding where words are intruders. 
Soul touches Soul, and Coruscations of mysterious 
flame irradiate the Universe. 

Apart, — nameles-s forebodings overhang; heavy 
sinkings of heart sap the strength ; no phantasmal hap- 
pening but appears possible ; the Soul struggles hope- 
lessly in a sinister web of gloom; it beats it-s futile 
wings to traverse immeasurable space; it would break 
free and be with its Beloved ; its wild tormentings fret 
the walls of its frail tabernacle until it all but pierces 
through, leaving it tenantless. 

Thus the Soul, in its finitude, striving to compass 
Infinity, may come to sad grief. Sometimes it kindles 



Love 63 

a reverberating, volcanic explosion, threatening to dis- 
integrate the Heaven-saturated Soul with pyrotechnic 
convulsions, whose darting tongues of supernal fire lap 
its Soul-mate in the devouring element, threatening to 
consume it also. 

How tremendous and how ungovernable, withal, is 
this Heaven-born force ! Does Fate mock us glamour- 
stricken mortals with scorching naphtha-fire, illuminat- 
ing a magic vision, inaccessible as the stars of the sky, 
and evanescent, intangible, almost without reality, lur- 
ing from the safe depths of Silence and Insensitiveness, 
into raw Aliveness and morbid Apprehensiveness, 
whence the Soul is whirled, disoriented and amazed on 
a shoreless sea of passionate Unrest? 

Or has a challenge come from Life itself, calling on 
all strong Things to come forth and do battle for the 
greater glory of their Being? Are, after all, these 
searing furnace-fires but blessed, purifying flames 
which devour the grosser tissue, leaving for the gar- 
ment of the Soul fine-spun meshes of translucent gold, 
through which pours the rich, prismatic radiance of 
Truth ? Are the breathless tossings to and fro but the 
beating of vibrant, penetrating Light? Is the wide, 
billowing sea of unrest but the buoyant element which 



M Seances With Carlyle 

supports the strong swimmer, while it swallows up the 
timorous? Methinks it may be so. 

While the Rose-goddess revels in largess of incense- 
breathing petals flung on the Morning, and -shadowy 
visions rise and dissolve to the celestial fingering of a 
thousand unheard harps, bearing to the inward ear the 
tones of the beloved voice, how the Soul is thrilled 
and carried out of itself, until it, too, bids fair to be 
dissolved in celestial ec-static bliss ! All doubts have 
vanished, evil is non-existant, the Universe is kindly, 
sympathetic, entrancing; it is a circumambient sea of 
mystic delight and royal splendour, in whose lambent 
depths, Soul to Soul, as liquid Star to liquid Star, may 
flow, merging in a tremendous Oneness with each 
other and with All Things. 

So great and so essentially real is this Oneness, that 
the faintest suggestion of a shadow on its Perfection 
overcasts the Soul with impenetrable clouds of gloom. 
The Empyrean, penetrated erstwhile with joy, if 
flecked with the veriest speck, shows to the glory-pos- 
sessed eye, as a vast enclosing prison, filled with dark- 
ness that can be felt. The mellifluous, flowing airs are 
changed to frenzied, scorching blasts, in which the once 
flowerful Universe shrivels and passes away, and the 
undone Soul sinks into Nothingness and Night and 



Love 65 

Everlasting Silence, deeper than tlie Silence of Des- 
pair ! 

In this Gehenna of Inarticulateness, the bewildered 
Soul is impotent. Happy indeed if its Alter Ego pos- 
sess a potency to break the evil spell, and let in the 
light of Day on the insensate Stygian gloom. Then 
once more Blessedness fills the Heights and the Depths ; 
once more the Heart sings with the Sons of the Morn- 
ing! The Phoenix arises from her funeral pyre, 
spreading her jewelled pinions in the flashing sun, and 
the world renews its apparel of glamour and dream. 

But unhappy indeed if the mephitic poison has per- 
meated both Souls, and neither can bring help to the 
other. What is there then to look forward to but 
Fury-swept delirium, ever increasing in futile violence 
and lawlessness ? — Chaos and Torment. Was the Soul 
created to be at the mercy of these awful and inimical 
Forces ? By High Heaven, No ! Tremendous though 
the upheaval be, though all the hellish crew jeer and 
sling their pit- forged darts, yet somewhere in the 
Centre of the Storm, in the innermost sanctuary of the 
Soul, is Quiet. Let but the Soul look within, and ap- 
prehend itself; gradually the outer ravings become less 
vociferous; the infernal glare fades; the "Still, small 
Voice" is heard, speaking with Authority ; and the un- 



66 Seances With Carlyle 

holy rout vanishes ! So is Order restored in the Soul, 
and once more it is visited by Paradisic dreams, and 
of its own inherent strength gives Strength to its hap- 
less fellow- Soul. 

Let no one dare to love or to be loved, if the door of 
his Holy of Holies hangs on rusty hinges. There must 
be ever a shelter for himself and for his Beloved, 
ready to open at the faintest touch. The hinges need 
no costly, fragrant oil to make them turn at need. The 
plain, sanctified oil of Obedience to the Highest is the 
only anointment which can eflfect an entrance to this 
impregnable inner stronghold. 

As poor Teufelsdrockh, after many tossings, dis- 
covered, — "Obedience is our universal duty and des- 
tiny; wherein who so will not bend must break; too 
early and too thoroughly we cannot be trained to know 
that Would, in this world of ours, is as mere zero to 
Should, and for most part as the smallest of fractions 
even to Shall. . . . Wouldst thou rather be a 
peasant's son that knew, were it never so rudely, there 
was a God in Heaven and in Man; or a duke's son 
that only knew there were two and thirty quarters on 
the family-coach?" 

Strange it is that the smallest infraction of law in 
the rare and fine things brings unbearable penalties. 



Love 67 

Physical transgression brings penalties indeed, and 
doubtless hard to be borne ; but spiritual penalties fall 
upon the vital and tenderest parts of the Soul, and are 
not at all to be borne. Is Glory always nearest to 
Darkness? Is Life, of all things, most akin to Death? 
The full-blown rose, with its golden heart open to the 
sunshine, shall be scattered to the winds, while the 
tight, green-sheathed bud, folded within itself, out- 
braves the rudest gust. The gorgeous-hued butterfly 
courts death at every flutter, and has at best but a few 
days to live ; the comfortable, somnolent chrysalis may 
exist for months in its hidden chamber. What is the 
mystery? It cannot be that fullness of Life is closest 
to No-Life and Nothingness. Plentitude of Being 
cannot blaze sky- rocket- wise into vain stars and falling 
meteors that go out in blackness. If Life of one kind 
dies, a higher Life must take its place. This seems to 
be our reasonablest Hope, and, in fact, the only reason- 
able Hope that can overflow the gloom of Despondency 
with Light that cannot fail. 

He Who calls the stars by name, and numbers the 
sands of the seashore; who plunges the Earth into 
darkness, and awakens it in the morning with a trum- 
pet peal of colour, will not leave us to perish in our 
folly! He, who has created us with hearts of love, 



68 Seances With Carlyle 

will carry our love to its consummation in the Eterni- 
ties ! So be it ! 

With a deep sigh Carlyle turned from my window; 
and I heard, fading off into the darkness, the Twenty- 
third Psalm, sung to the tune of Arnold. The storm 
had died down, and I fell into a peaceful sleep, with 
Fairy lying at my feet and keeping them warm with his 
soft little body. 



XI. 
UNITY 

In my room there is a miniature book-case, which be- 
longed to Cousin Lucia when she was a Httle girl. It 
is filled with a child's story-books and with simple 
books of devotion in pretty scarlet and bright blue 
bindings. A drenching rain storm had lasted all after- 
noon; so no one had gone to the Post Office for the 
new magazines. There was not a single thing left to 
read ; and, after poking in vain through Cousin Alex's 
store for something to while away the evening, and 
glancing for the third time over the latest news of the 
Labour Strikes and the Russian Revolution, in sheer 
ennui, I turned to the little white-enamelled book-case 
with its gay-coloured volumes. I looked at pictures in 
Hans Anderson^ and re-read The Jabberwocky, and 
then I came across a little Elucidation of the Psalms. 
I fingered its soft blue morocco binding and gilt-edged 
India paper; and almost mechanically I slid into my 
long chair by the grate fire, and escaped from the 
murky, thunderous atmosphere of Strikes and Revolu- 
tions into a quiet haven of peace and beauty. 

69 



70 Seances With Carlyle 

"Behold, how good and joyful a thing it is, brethren, 
to dwell together in unity ! 

"It is like the precious ointment upon the head, that 
ran down unto the beard: even unto Aaron's beard, 
and went down to the skirts of his clothing. 

"Like as the dew of Hermon : which fell upon the 
hill of Zion. 

"For there the Lord promised His blessing: and 
Hfe forevermore/' 

As I read, I could see Aaron, standing under a bril- 
liant eastern sky, in the robe of the ephod of gorgeous 
blue, with its border of vari-coloured pomegranates 
and golden bells, his breast-plategleamingwithprecious 
stones, and bearing above his forehead the inscription 
Holiness to the Lord; while the fragrant holy oil, which 
none dared use save the Priest at the Altar, poured 
over him its rich perfume, which was to the waiting 
people a very literal "odour of sanctity." How far re- 
moved it all was from the beating of policemen, the 
smashing of machinery, the pulling down of rulers! 
To dwell together in unity ! How full life would be of 
unmarred colour and glory, how sweet with dignity 
and mutual respect ! 

I fell asleep torn with the pain and the unrest of the 



Unity 71 

world, but finding comfort in the hope that beauty and 
peace would one day triumph over squalor and disor- 
der. When I awoke, the grey dawn was beginning to 
be touched with silvery gold, and the sweet breath of 
wet pine trees blew in at the open window. 

"Heaven be thanked, every night has its morning !" 

There was Carlyle, looking as if he had slept badly, 
and was glad to see the daylight appear. 

"How much longer," he continued, "will mankind 
linger in darkness, and draw the veil of perpetual 
Night over the face of the Morning!" 

I thought of my newspaper reading of the evening, 
and said nothing. 

"Our discourse this morning will be on Unity; take 
that for a heading." 

"I am ready : Unity " 

He began. 

UNITY 

In this God's world, with its wild-whirling eddies 
and mad foam-oceans; in these days of Revolutions 
and of Labour- Strikes, where "human faces gloom 
discordantly, disloyally, on one another," is there any 
balm for the wounds of the World; any sweet-smelling 
fragrance to purify its stench-filled nostrils; any still. 



72 Seances With Carlyle 

small Voice to make itself heard through the din, and 
proclaim with tranquil conviction; — Lo! Here is the 
pass-word to Peace; here is the solution of the infinite 
questioning that vexes Humanity? 

Can this chaotic Untidiness of Spiritual Rubbish, this 
Litter of FooHshness, this Pandemonium of low Self- 
seeking, this ghoulish, wide-sounding Carmagnole, ever 
come to aught but sad, disastrous mischief? 

Through the hoarse Carmagnole, can any note of 
sweetness prevail? Can the unpruned vine of lawless, 
undisciplined self-seeking, with its sour, acrid fruit, be, 
by any known process, lopped, and being fertilized with 
noble Altruism, trained to bear full- juiced, mellow 
fruit, translucent with sunny World-thirst-quenching 
nectar, and beautiful with the bloom of fair words and 
kind deeds? Can the dry bones of Phariseeism and 
Scepticism be bleached in the heart-searching rays of 
Reality, and clothed upon with warm living tissue, into 
which shall be breathed the life of the Awful Spirit? 

Phariseeism and Scepticism obstruct the ways of 
Pleasantness, and choke the springing flowers along the 
quiet paths of Peace. And Industrialism moves, re- 
lentless and fateful, like some impending Juggernaut, 
gazing corporate-eyed and all unseeing at the victims 
in its path. Yet, if it move not, the destroyer and the 



Unity 73 

doomed, and all innocent inhabiters of the Earth will 
cease to be. Industrialism provides luxuries for the 
many and necessities for all; and, if any lack these 
necessities, the causes are not very far to seek. It is 
not against Industrialism it-self, that we must wage 
war, but against the Industrial Spirit, which sees in the 
Worker, be he even a little child, only so much avail- 
able Machinery for turning brain and muscle into gold, 
by some fiendish alchemy, which sucks the very 
Machinery itself into one fell giant Crucible, and 
grinds it to an unrecognisable travesty of what its 
Maker designed it to be. 

What lack of Imagination there is everywhere! 
What sheer, unmitigated inability to put oneself in an- 
other man's place ! It is hard for the rich man to en- 
ter into the trials of the poor; and it is, on the other 
hand, absolutely impossible for the average man of the 
labouring class to form the slightest conception of the 
needs of the man of wealth or education. The ideal of 
comfort of the ordinary day-labourer is three good 
square meals a day, his pipe, a glass of something 
whenever he feels like it, and the movies or a third- 
rate theatre in the evening. Grand opera would only 
bore him; Wagner could not hold a candle to the 
crudest popular-song writer; and it would be a verit- 



74 Seances With Carlyle 

able martyrdom for him to wade through ten pages of 
solid reading; his highest flights in literature only 
reach the level of the Sunday Supplement. 

Transport our labourer into the circumstances of 
the man he envies. What happens? The changeling 
may now be burdened with the digestion of a dyspep- 
tic; he has lost his three square meals, in fact he has 
not found even one meagre meal to his liking; the 
polished floors and soft rugs are inconvenient fal-de- 
lals, on which muddy booths may not tread; the books 
in the library are dry and meaningless; and all the 
appointments of the house are unhomelike; his new 
garments are distasteful and the necessity of suiting 
them to the occasion is irksome, while a stiff collar is 
the crowning abomination of this new life, — No, he is 
not happy, this is not what he wanted! What, then, 
can he want? He does not know; certainly not the 
confining formalities of wealth; like the hero of the 
old song, "A little more bacon and greens", perhaps. 
This is just what, in a vague way, he does want; this, 
and the power to look down on those who now look 
down on him, as he thinks. 

What waste-bickering state of things is this? How 
hopeless and futile the means we take to set these 
things right! Verily, "a man's life consisteth not in 



Unity 75 

the abundance of things that he possesseth;" but will 
universal Dog- in-tlie- Manger ism allow this verity 
place? "Nay," says business-like Dog-in- the- Manger- 
ism "Doth God say ? But hear ye rather my command- 
ments, which I thunder from my throne of Self- Con- 
ceit, set fast on its foundations of Stupidity and False 
Pride! Would ye be as gods, free to take what ye 
will, free to destroy all that ye cannot enjoy or under- 
stand, free to glut your Hatred and Revenge to the 
uttermost Farthing's worth, free to play the damnable 
Kill- Joy to your Heart's content? Hearken unto me, 
and be ye wise ! 

"Thou shalt have no higher god than Self. 

"Thou shalt know no law but the Satisfaction of 
Self. 

"Thou shalt covet all that thou dost not possess. 

"Thou shalt despise all that thou dost not under- 
stand. 

"Thou shalt hate thy Neighbor as thou lovest Thy- 
self. 

"This do, and thou shalt live to the full, and thy 
name shall be feared from the rising of the sun 
to the going down of the same." 

"And my immortal Soul, O, all-powerful Dog-in- 

the-Mangerism ?" — 
"To hell with thine Immortal Soul !" 



7^ Seances With Carlyle 

Just so. For thou art no Divinity, for all thy vaunt- 
ed strength and thy miswisdom, Dog-in-the-Manger- 
isms, but a very Demon, battening on the folly of Men; 
and he who follows the Devil can have but one end ! 

As I said a quarter of a century ago : "Men's hearts 
ought not to be set against one another; but set with 
one another, and all against the Evil Thing only. 
Men's souls ought to be left to see clearly; not 
jaundiced, blinded, twisted all awry, by revenge, mu- 
tual abhorrence, and the like." With deep soul-loath- 
ing and dismay does the Seeing Man look upon the 
mess into which our Civilization has got itself. At 
every street corner one hears of the sorrows of war, 
truly horrible, indeed, and terrible past belief, and in a 
fair way to arouse us from our lethargy of Self-Com- 
placency and to teach us that Life means more than 
feasting, and Death more than dying. But there are 
other horrors, grim, and silent-bound, hell-infested, 
devil-ridden. The Social Service worker knows of 
these, and knows, too, of the multitudinous wheels 
within wheels that must be set in motion to run the 
least of these horrors out of existence. 

What the world needs is the concerted action of all 
those who are of the Kingdom of Light. Through the 
length and breadth of the Earth are the tens of thou- 



Unity 77 

sands who have not bowed the knee to Baal ; there are 
good souls waiting in out-of-the-way places for some 
one to direct their energies ; there are whole scattered 
armies of doughty spiritual soldiers, only waiting for 
a strong Captain to co-ordinate their forces and lead 
them against the minions of the Evil One. Are not 
his forces organized to the last degree, and of a solid- 
arity unknown to the Seekers after Righteousness? 
There must be a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all 
together, if we are to shake the foundations of the 
Gates of Evil. We need a ringing Voice, crying in 
the Wilderness of our Inanition and Timidity, galvan- 
izing us into one compact, Heaven-directed Force, 
which shall tower above the devil- fathered propensities 
of poor human nature, and lift it into the Divine Thing 
it was meant to be. When there is Unity among the 
Servants of the Highest, when they are marshalled un- 
der the banner of God-given Reason and Divine 
Charity, then the Gates of Hell shall fall before their 
concerted tread, as the walls of Jericho fell to the 
marching of the hosts of Israel. Then, surely, a cure 
will be found for the universal Social Gangrene, which 
is of the Devil's inoculating, and by no means an in- 
tegral part of the Body Politic. 

The custom of Praying has fallen into desuetude, 



7^ Seances With Carlyle 

• 
though there are indications of its revival; faint stir- 
rings of Faith among the Nations, that the trough of 
the Sea of our Torment and Disillu-sionment is still in 
the hollow of His Hand Who hurled this whirling 
planet of ours into space, and Who calls all the Stars 
by name, so that not one of them faileth. Let, then, 
the man who believes that Prayer is a Force, which, 
though as silent as Gravitation, is yet more powerful 
than the harnessed Lightning, pray, and turn this 
Spiritual disintegrating and revivifying Current on the 
dark places of the Earth, praying with all the might of 
his manhood, with Hand and Heart and Brain and 
Soul: Thy Kingdom Come! 

The sun, which had risen behind a heavy cloud, now 
burst in full splendour over the hill tops, irradiating the 
cloud with far-darting splashes of rose-crimson and 
deep daffodil. The intense blue of the upper sky was 
reflected in the river, rippled by the morning breeze ; I 
drew in a deep delicious whiff of the sweet-scented air 
of the dawn, and turned to speak to Carlyle. He had 
gone. 



XII. 

FINALITY 

Cousin Lucia is bound for Australia, and Alex and 
she will be tremendously missed by us all ! We saw 
them off yesterday in great state. Cousin Sandy's boy, 
a strapping lad of fourteen, insisted upon accompany- 
ing us on his motor cycle, and the ne'er-do-weel, who 
had filled his pockets with rice and confetti, made us 
the gazing stock of the wharf. He said that Cousin 
Lucia looked like a bride, in her pretty grey travelling 
dress, and that, as Uncle Alex couldn't take his eyes off 
her, every one would think that they were on their 
wedding trip anyway. But we forgave his pranks for 
they helped to carry things off. Lucia is the family 
favourite, and it is not easy to let her go to the other 
side of the world, knowing that she was never coming 
back. 

To-morrow, I shut up the house and return to Mrs. 
Smith's boarding establishment. I do not look for- 
ward to the change, but I shall settle down as usual, I 
suppose. In any case, the life seems gone out of this 
place, and if it were not for Fairy I should feel deso- 

79 



^ Seances With Carlyle 

late indeed. Fairy has hunted in every corner for his 
beloved friend, whining and scratching doors, to the 
detriment of the paint, and at last he has cuddled under 
the bedclothes and is giving an occasional whimpering 
moan in his sleep. 

I did not know that I, too, had fallen asleep, but it 
must be so, for I realize that I am waking to the sound 
of Carlyle's voice at the window. There is something 
homelike in it; I am getting rather fond of the gruff 
x)ld man. He sounds sad this morning; it must be an 
echo of my own mood. There is no preliminary pas- 
sage of arms, and he plunges almost at once into his 
subject. 

"This house feels chilly this morning." 

"It is," I admit. 

"Lucia is a fine woman." 

Fairy arouses at the name, and utters a lonesome 
wail. 

Carlyle gives him a kindly glance, and settles himself 
on the window seat. 

"So this is my last morning !" 

"Oh !" I exclaimed with a sudden sinking of heart. 
^'Are all my friends going at once? Will you not visit 
me in Town?" 

"The Town," he solemnly declares, "is a congeries 



Finality 8i 

of brick-and-mortar shells, in which the unhappy dwel- 
lers are encased, away from the free airs of Heaven. 
I have breathed the pure atmosphere of the upper sky 
so long that these stuffy tabernacles of gloom and stale 
air are more than I can stand. So we must take fare- 
well of each other this morning. You have irritated 
me considerably, it is true, by your careless writing 
and by your reprehensible habit of sharpening your 
pencil just as I am ready to begin ; but on the whole we 
have managed very well, and I must confess that I 
shall miss you. However, there is nothing so foolish 
as prolonged leave-taking, so we shall consider our 
farewells said, and proceed to work. Title : Finality" 
"Good-bye,*' I said regretfully, "y^s, I have it down, 
— Finality." 

FINALITY 

Finality f It exists not; though — mysterious para- 
dox — the moments are filled with nothing less. The 
everlasting hills cry out against it ; but the sands of the 
Sea and the fruitful soil tell of the wearing down of 
the adamantine mountains ; while they tell, too, that the 
mountain which has lost its place and its name, has 
not ceased to be; its pulverized atoms support the 
immensity of the heaving ocean or feed the roots of 



82 Seances With Carlyle 

the patriarchal oak-tree. The oak in its turn dies, and 
the last acorn it has dropped to the ground, which has 
been trampled into the soil, also dies, and in its dying 
sends down rootlets to feed on the dust of the ancient 
hills, and puts forth tentative leaves to claim their 
share of sun and air and moisture ; and so well do roots 
and leaves do their task, so resolute is the sapling in 
casting off its dead foliage and clothing itself year by 
year in vigorous chlorophyll-filled leafage, that, through 
this continual process of Finality and Re-creation, it 
grows into a monarch of trees, umbrageous and good 
to look upon, its roots carpeted with the primro-se and 
the jonquil, its branches filled with the vocal wind and 
the songs of birds. When the old oak is cut down. 
Finality hangs heavy on our hearts; if we live to see 
the new tree grow up, we exclaim with fervent con- 
fidence, "Nothing ends V 

The oat-crop, germinating in the dark earth, is fit 
food for neither man nor beast ; but after the seed has 
disintegrated, and sent up its little spears of green, 
and the green field has become clothed in pale 
glistening stubble, what neighing at mangers, what 
lively gallops across country proclaim that the 
harvest is gathered in! What plates of porridge and 
bowls of brose are being filled in every cottage kitchen! 



Finality 83 

The grain has lost its enclosing sheath, has fed on it- 
self and died; — here is Finality, and of a very 
thorough sort. Yet the farmer's boy, plodding about 
the field, knows that the oat-crop has come from that 
bushel or so of grain which his master sowed in the 
Spring; and that the brown acres will be sown afresh 
from this new supply, to be harvested in its turn ; and 
so on, unceasingly, through the cycle of the years. 
Finality has slipped through our fingers; Continuity 
stares at us from all sides ; the Miracle and the Para- 
dox are Everywhere ; we cannot escape them. 

Greece decays ; Carthage is in ruins ; Rome is over- 
run by the Northern tribes, as they pour South, to be 
in their turn distributed and re-distributed over the 
face of Europe. But, though the Old Civilizations have 
ceased to be, they are not dead, for their spirit has been 
carried forward into the New. The Fall of Constan- 
tinople fermented the Revival of Learning, and the 
known world was flooded with Greek Literature and 
Greek Art, with its strong, appealing beauty, and its 
grave pagan dangers. The Down- fall of Germany will 
probably give an immense impetus to chemical engin- 
eering and to sanctified research of every description ; 
and the pendulum will swing from Horror and Abom- 
ination, along an ascending arc of decent Humanity. 



84 Seances With Carlyle 

Lastly, at some not- too- far distant Day, the Overthrow 
of Materialism and Mammon, will, we pray, set free 
the imprisoned forces of the Spirit, and a Spiritual 
Reign of Equity and Understanding will cover the 
Earth "as the waters cover the Sea." No more Reigns 
of Terror and Lords of Misrule! A new Tree of Life 
shall overshadow the Nations, a new and spiritual Ig- 
drasil, with its roots deep in the soil of the dead Past, 
and its luxuriant foliage spreading as a covert for the 
Sons of Men, its waving branches proclaiming the 
Finality of Dearth and Woe, and the Everlastingness 
of Spiritual Life. 

Do we meet a Friend after our own hearts? With 
what outpouring joy we hail this Voice that proclaims 
our ideals ; how our wearied hearts quicken their beat, 
as we clasp hands with the Man whose words are co- 
significative with our own ! 

He whose aims are reverent and real and whose life 
is an inspiration to our halting attempts to tread the 
World- forsaken Path of Uprightness, becomes to us 
some sort of Divinity ; and we feel that to this relation- 
ship, at least, there can be no Finality ; for is it not the 
Union of two Souls in the World-Task of creating, if 
not a New Heaven, at least a New Earth, when the 
Downtrodden may once more move as Men, and where 



Finality S5 

all Creatures may raise grateful hearts that they are 
alive ? Happy they, who being united in such Godlike 
purpose, can stand shoulder to shoulder, without breach 
or coldness, until, for one of them, "the Shadow-s flee 
away." 

But, how often can two work together disinterested- 
ly, year in and year out, for any cause, be it the Noblest 
they know? To Brutus, Cassius has "an itching 
palm"; to Cassius, Brutus is "a hot friend cooling." 
In this World of Inadequacies and Shortcomings, the 
rift in the lute makes shrill piping, sooner or later, in 
most partnerships. The Accuser of the Brethren 
carries his calumnies, not only before the High Throne, 
but also into the hearts of the Co- Workers with the 
Eternal. He sows the Dragon's teeth from which 
spring Schisms and Dissensions, and, while the Right- 
eous slay one another, he strengthens his Gates of Evil. 

Shall we, then, crush our Man of divine Gold be- 
cause, as he stumbles, we discover that his feet are as 
much clay as our own? Break off relations with him? 
We cannot. We may alter these relations; the inter- 
changes of Affection and Esteem may be replaced by 
cold Aversion or life-consuming Hate; but, having 
once had dealings with him, he will pursue us, and, 
unless the cells of our memory be blotted out forever. 



86 Seances With Carlyle 

he will invade our thoughts and trouble our emotions, 
be it but the faintest flicker of remembrance. May we 
renew our early intimacy with him, if it be broken off? 
By no means. We may establish other relation-s, — 
closer or more distant, — than before; but renew the 
old ones, — never ! We are not the men we were yes- 
terday; he, too, has changed. 

As I once said, "A man, be the Heavens ever 
praised, is sufficient for himself; yet were ten men, 
united in Love, capable of being and of doing what ten 
thousand singly would fail in. Infinite is the help man 
can yield to man." Gather then your ten men ; sworn 
to fight manfully in any Cause whatsoever, provided it 
be for the overthrow of Mammon and his crew ; armed 
and armoured, not with glaive and buckler, but with 
the swift sword of Justice, and the impenetrable shield 
of Consciousness of Right. What a flood of Spiritual 
Strength were let loose over this Materialistic World ! 
Surely here is something that will last ! Of two, one 
may fail; but of ten, are there not nine left? Nay, of 
ten lepers who were cleansed, but one returned to give 
glory, and — he was a Samaritan! Nothing lasts but 
Eternal Truth, Eternal Justice, and — ^though this is the 
secret of the few — Eternal Love! 

Even strong personal Love feels the strain of Time 



Finality 87 

and of the nerve- wearing daily happenings. How sad 
a Finality comes to it, when the light of the eyes, 
which may still shine for Strangers, dies out at the 
approach of the Once-Loved; when the sound of the 
step, which in past days brought a thrill of pure joy, 
brings dread or indifference! And what more sad 
than the struggle against Finality and Death, when 
Love, like a broken-winged moth, bereft of its glisten- 
ing down, halts and flutters weakly from flower to 
flower of desire, striving to keep alive some semblance 
of its old-time glory and vigour; shutting its eyes to 
the unworthiness of its object ; and cherishing any poor 
remnant of sympathy and nobleness to be found there ! 
Of the Love that never fails, and is met by its Equal 
in Love, I hardly dare to speak. With that ambrosial 
joy we escape from the loud dust-whirlwind of An- 
tagonisms and Dispraise, which sweeps around the 
outer world, into the quiet confidence of a perfect un- 
derstanding, where our faults are forgiven, and our 
virtues are magnified. We know that Here is no 
Finality. The Filaments of this Love, slender and 
strong, that bind Heart to Heart as one, cannot be 
broken, even by puissant Death. The sorrows borne 
together; the joys shared in blissful freedom from care, 
are imperishable memories, shining luminous-effulgent 



88 Seances With Carlyle 

akmg the padiway of ^bc years tbat lead frcm labour 
and battle, on, tfarongb inrisiUe hosts of Archdemoiis 
and Archangds, to Eterr.^' ?ei:e! 

Fairy 6tirred, ir.i .r .-^cei iiis cx)ld nose into my 
neck. I lodced op, — Cartrle was gone. 



LIBRARY 




